DR Congo’s M23 rebels surrender after UN backed offensive

November 6, 2013 5:45 am

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Democratic Republic of Congo soldiers sit on tanks as they rest in Rutshuru on their way to the Mbuzi hilltop on November 4, 2013, after recapturing the area from M23 rebels/AFP

By AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE, CHANZU, Nov 6 – Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s powder-keg east have surrendered after a crushing UN-backed offensive ended their 18 month insurgency in a region that has seen some of Africa’s deadliest conflicts.

Kinshasa, emboldened by its biggest military victory in half a century, said its forces would keep up the momentum to go after Rwandan Hutu militia also active in the region.

The M23 rebel movement’s statement on Tuesday that it would “end its rebellion” and instead pursue its goals “through purely political means” came after around 200 holdout rebels were routed from their hilltop positions overnight.

“It’s a total victory for the DRC,” said government spokesman Lambert Mende, adding that the routed rebels had fled to neighbouring Rwanda. A local official said the M23’s top commander Sultani Makenga was among them.

The United States hailed the rebels’ surrender and urged “reaching a negotiated end to the rebellion as a critical first step to ending the instability in DRC,” said deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf.

The army launched a major offensive on October 25, steadily claiming the main rebel-held towns until diehard M23 fighters were forced to hole up on three hills about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of the regional capital Goma and near the Rwandan border.

The insurgents who at their strongest occupied Goma for 10 days a year ago called for a truce on Sunday, but the army pressed on with its assault.

The UN special force in the region which had so far been assisting with aerial reconnaissance, intelligence and planning joined direct combat late Monday after getting the green light to bombard the hilltops.

“With all that the M23 left (in weapons and material), they can no longer come back,” Congolese general Jean-Lucien Bahuma, standing at the bottom of the captured hill in Chanzu, told AFP.

At its summit, Brazilian general Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, commander of the UN force, congratulated the Congolese army.

“I think that it’s one very important moment to the Congolese armed forces and to the Congolese people, to bring peace to this region, to have control again on this part of the territory,” he told AFP.

‘They’ll never come back’

In Bunagana, which had been the M23’s base, Aline, a clothes seller who had just returned from across the border in Uganda said she was happy. “The rebels have gone for good. They’ll never come back.”

One resident returning to Goma was more restrained, warning the rebels could return “because we don’t know where they’ve gone”.

UN experts and Kinshasa have repeatedly described the M23 as a Rwandan puppet, accusing the government in the capital Kigali of arming the group and even of sending some of its own troops to the battlefield which the government denied.

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